Who This Book Is For

Anyone working with applications that use a MySQL database backend will benefit greatly from the advice and techniques in this book. Although a working knowledge of both SQL and MySQL is assumed, the book is suitable for both beginners and intermediate users alike. Whether you read it through and absorb the advice or work through it on a live project, the efficiency and maintainability of your databases will certainly improve as a result.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Preface

What This Book Covers

What You Need for This Book

Conventions

Reader Feedback

Customer Support

Chapter 2: Introducing MySQL Design

MySQL's Popularity and Impact

Data as a Resource

Data Modeling

Case Study

The Tale of the Too Wide Table

Summary

Chapter 3: Data Collecting

System Boundaries Identification

Document Gathering

Interviews

Data Collected for our Case Study

Summary

Chapter 4: Data Naming

Data Cleaning

Subdividing Data Elements

Data that are Results

Data as a Column's or Table's Name

Planning for Changes

Naming Recommendations

Summary

Chapter 5: Data Grouping

Initial List of Tables

Rules for Table Layout

Improving the Structure

Validating the Structure

Summary

Chapter 6: Data Structure Tuning

Data Access Policies

Storage Engines

Performance

In-Column Data Encoding

Case Study's Final Structure

Summary

Chapter 7: Supplemental Case Study

Results from the Document Gathering Phase

Preliminary List of Data Elements

Tables and Sample Values

Airline System Data Schema

Sample Queries

Summary

What You Will Learn

Asking users the right questions to collect relevant data for the system you are building

In Detail

For most of us, setting up the database for an application is often an afterthought. While you don't need to be a professional database designer to create a working application, knowing a few insider tips and techniques can make both the process easier and the end result much more effective. This book doesn't set out to make you an expert in data analysis, but it does provide a quick and easy way to raise your game in this essential part of getting your application right.

Authors

Marc Delisle

Marc Delisle was awarded "MySQL Community Member of the year 2009" because of his involvement with phpMyAdmin. He started to contribute to the project in December 1998, when he made the multi-language version. He is still involved with phpMyAdmin as a developer and project administrator.
Marc is a system administrator at Cegep de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada. He has been teaching networking, security, and web application development. In one of his classes, he was pleased to meet a phpMyAdmin user from Argentina. Marc lives in Sherbrooke with his wife and they enjoy spending time with their four children.

Alerts & Offers

Series & Level

We understand your time is important. Uniquely amongst the major publishers, we seek to develop and publish the broadest range of learning and information products on each technology. Every Packt product delivers a specific learning pathway, broadly defined by the Series type. This structured approach enables you to select the pathway which best suits your knowledge level, learning style and task objectives.

Learning

As a new user, these step-by-step tutorial guides will give you all the practical skills necessary to become competent and efficient.

Beginner's Guide

Friendly, informal tutorials that provide a practical introduction using examples, activities, and challenges.

Essentials

Fast paced, concentrated introductions showing the quickest way to put the tool to work in the real world.

Cookbook

A collection of practical self-contained recipes that all users of the technology will find useful for building more powerful and reliable systems.

Blueprints

Guides you through the most common types of project you'll encounter, giving you end-to-end guidance on how to build your specific solution quickly and reliably.

Mastering

Take your skills to the next level with advanced tutorials that will give you confidence to master the tool's most powerful features.

Starting

Accessible to readers adopting the topic, these titles get you into the tool or technology so that you can become an effective user.

Progressing

Building on core skills you already have, these titles share solutions and expertise so you become a highly productive power user.